Loki's Prank
by Mysterious-little-person
Summary: Loki is bored and decides to play a prank on the unsuspecting Avengers. Animals are the product. Silly One Shot I had to write. Post-Avengers with surprise cameo appearance.


Just a quick story to get me back in writing mode. So here we have it, Loki and Avengers Silliness for a fun short read.

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><p>It started with Loki.<p>

The God of Mischief was bored and naturally that led to moments of ingenuity. Most of the time involving his brother or members of the Asgardian palace that he called home but these days that involved the group of humans who dubbed themselves The Avengers.

Now, ever since that whole trouble with taking over the world and what not Loki had settled into the role as prankster to the SHIELD agency. They still didn't trust him and would never consider him to be 'one of the good guys' yet they knew that he would never intentionally hurt Earth's inhabitants again.

That didn't mean that they never saw Loki. Far from it in fact.

Loki always appeared in places he was not wanted, seemingly just to bug people. This of course, was exactly what he was doing.

Sometimes, it was in the middle of a meeting between the Avengers. Other times it was in Tony Starks cars right before he got in them. Once, he even appeared in a mirror in Steve Rodger's bathroom saying nothing more then "Hello" before vanishing again.

Needless to say many of the men around the base had taken to checking their mirrors or putting curtains over them just in case.

Sometimes, Loki would impersonate people just to see how long it would take before he was caught. Other times, he would switch file names and pen colors to freak out the agents. Once, he took Nick Fury's trench coats and replaced them all with a size smaller just to freak out the already angry man.

Needless to say, Nick was not pleased with Loki. At all.

The most memorable prank though happened on Steve Rodger's birthday. He had been out of the ice for almost two years at that point and Tony Stark was looking for a reason to celebrate.

Loki looked over his plan one more time. If he placed the spell directly underneath the card table then the range would extend to almost the entire floor of the house and some parts of the garage. Meaning, everyone at their little get-to-gether would be effected. Perfect.

Naturally he was a little disappointed (as was Tony) that Steve only wanted the main team (and Miss Potts of course) at his party (secretly Steve would have loved to have a ton of people their but the more people the more chances of Tony getting strippers and throwing something way too over the top so he just left it alone). That meant less victims. Oh well, it would be just as funny to see these so called "Super Heroes" at their worst.

"I still don't understand this game!" Thor barely stopped himself from throwing his helmet off in disgust remembering the last time he had done so and the resulting lecture it had brought.

"Thor baby, take it easy. Its just a game of poker! Just watch and learn." Tony had taken to speaking like a gang member when he started drinking. This wasn't helped by the large cigar in his mouth (of which he hid from Pepper whenever she walked back into the room).

Currently the Avengers Team was gathered around a massive poker table that had been set up in Tony's living room. Thor had not been dealt any cards as he didn't know how to play and had been told to watch. They hadn't even made it to the reveal and he was already complaining.

"But the man with bird's eyes has already traded away his King! I thought Kings were the most powerful in this game!"

A collective sigh rose as everyone dropped their cards to the table. Well, there went that hand.

"I had three aces," murmured Hawkeye who looked quite putout at having such a nice hand go to waste.

"No Thor, Aces are the highest in poker. Then Kings and Queens and Jacks and then it goes in number order. Hawkeye had three aces which means he didn't need the King in his hand." Steve was always good at explaining things and he was the only one besides Tony who would take the time to teach the Asgardian Prince what was going on. Natasha, Nick, and Coulsen had voted to exclude him from the table but it was Steve's party so he got his way. Although he was really beginning to regret this decision.

"This makes no sense! Kings are the most powerful!"

"Just watch and learn!" While sounding cocky coming out of Tony's mouth, out of Nick's mouth it sounded more like an order so Thor promptly shut up.

The game continued on with Natasha winning most rounds followed closely by Tony and Coulsen before Pepper (the one with the lowest amount left, she was just too earnest!) took pity on the Thunder God. Thor had taken to staring sullenly around the room and had started to grate on everyone's nerves when he started tapping his massive fingers against the table hard enough to shake the chips from their neat piles.

"Thor? Could you help me out for a second? I need to get a few things in the kitchen and need someone who is strong enough to help." Pepper's damsel in distress act did the trick as Thor quickly leapt to his feet in order to help the lovely assistant.

"Lady Potts I would love to help you with your matronly duties." Pepper winced at this but hid it quickly with her grateful smile.

The plan was almost ruined by the always eager to help Steve Rodgers who also fell for Pepper's act but Tony had placed a firm hand on his shoulder knowing what Pepper was up to. Steve got the hint when everyone gave a sigh of relief when the pair left the room.

As the card game resumed Loki materialized not far away. He was concealed behind a few invisibility spells as well as a few cloaking charms that would prevent him from getting noticed by his own prank once he set it off.

Where was Loki before this you may ask? Well, the mischievous trickster was off at some sort of sporting event. Now, Loki didn't particularly like to watch these events but loved going to them as they were prime places to cause trouble. In fact, just tonight he had made one couple constantly spill on the people in front of them, another to have tickets for the same set of seats, and one singer to forget the words to the national anthem. It was well worth having his ear drums nearly blown out by some ridiculous fan screaming at one of the players. These days that fan would not be yelling at anything seeing as their voice had been reduced to a much lower decibel.

Now that the trickster had arrived he barely waited until he made sure all the Avengers were indeed at Tony's home before pulling the trigger to his carefully planted spell. At first it was no more noticeable then an odd spell but then smoke began to billow out from underneath the table. Most of the Team barely had time to jump back from the table in shock before they collapsed one by one. Loki waited until the smoke reached the kitchen where his brother and Pepper were and when he heard a gasp and the beginnings of a roar before two loud thumps he allowed himself to smile.

Quickly, before any of them had time to wait Loki activated the second part of the spell and then blew away the remaining sleeper smoke. It was all the God could do not to fall over laughing.

There, laying about in various positions where the Avengers stood moments before were some of the silliest creatures Loki had seen. The secondary spell he had constructed was simple: It would turn whoever was sleeping into that of their representative animal. It was a fun offshoot from his earlier training methods we he had first learned to change forms. Instead of showing your spirit animal for young spell casters to learn from this spell showed what others thought of you as. Loki didn't know for sure if this would work but seeing all the different species on the floor made him realize his true genius.

Tony was the first to wake. The sleek black tom cat didn't seem to realize his predicament until he started to look about. Not only did everything seem much bigger but there were animals in his house. Animals! Pepper was going to get an earful for this! Oh wait, he had paws. Ah, well, this is unfortunate. Did Tony mention how much he hates magic? Going to the chair where he remembered Steve to be sitting Tony looked around to see what kind of animal Steve had changed into. And rolled his eyes. Predictable. A Golden Retriever is exactly what Steve would be. Didn't whoever do this have any sense of humor? Wait, humor. Loki!

"Hey Steve! Wake up! We're fucking animals! Animals! Wake up Boy Scout we've got to find Loki!" Is what Tony tried to say. What it came out as was some sort of yowling that woke up Steve anyways.

Steve took a few confused laps around the table before coming to the same conclusion as Tony. He then began to bark madly until a pissed off Cobra-Natasha hissed. That was a surprise. Again Tony rolled his eyes as best he could and went off to look for the other Avengers. Hulk had become some sort of lizard-thing. Seriously what was he? He'd come back to that. What about Coulsen? Where'd he disappear off too. A cricket began to chirp frantically on the chair where the silent agent once sat so Tony figured that must be him. A cricket? Really? Better keep him away from Bruce until they got this sorted out.

Well everyone seemed to be accounted for except for Thor and Pepper so Tony nimbly hopped onto the table and began to yowl again. This time everyone seemed to understand and hopped, or scurried onto the table. That's when Tony spotted Hawkeye. Well, he certainly had wings. Tony had to contain the giggle that was bursting to come forth at the sight of the silent archer perched on the back of his chair in the form of a (get this) sparrow! Ha! He'd never live this down if Tony could help it!

Oh yeah! Nick! Where'd old man Fury get off to? Tony looked at the others and covered one eye with a paw. They seemed to get the idea and everyone hopped, scurried, and trotted to the edges of the table to have a look around. It was Sparroweye, I mean Clint, who saw him first. Underneath a side table a few feet away from the poker table the other animals had gathered upon lay a large badger with an eye patch. At this Tony couldn't contain his laughter (which sounded more like wheezing coming from the cat yet the sight of the often angry and grouchy Nick Fury as a mean and grouchy badger was just too much. Probably the exact reason he had hidden himself and had not come out like the rest of them.

About the time that Nick Fury almost launched himself onto the table and rip Tony a new one (animal or not) a frightened Rabbit-Pepper raced out of the kitchen. A loud Roster was trailing after her which was followed by Loki.

Thor! A Rooster! Oh it was too much. Loki literally couldn't help it. His enchantments fell away and left him in the open for all to see as the God of Mischief fell to his knees laughing. All the jokes he could make about preening and prostrating and endless bird jokes just kept coming back up everytime he tried to stop laughing. When he finally thought he had a hold of himself he had looked up to see all the animals gathered in front of the poker table glaring (or at least attempting too in some cases) at him. Loki couldn't help it and dissolved into giggles once more.

_Snikt!_

When Loki tried to turn around he found that three large blades had been pressed to his throat and the tips of three more extended to the back of his head. Well fuck. Looks like he forgot the newest member of the team.

"Better be a damn good reason you're here and they're all animals," growled the well known mutant.

"Uh, well you see, the spell will wear off in 24 hours. Good day!"

And with that the God of Mischief poofed away and left the only person left to stare blankly at the animals lined up on the floor. He left to go find one of Tony's nice cigars leaving the team with these last words:

"I thought I was the animal here."

And so the incident soon became infamous around the SHIELD base even if it was never officially talked about again. Excepting the one time Tony sent the Honey Badger video to Nick's email. But that's a story for a different day.

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><p>Hey thanks for reading! I really needed to get back into the mode and since I had this weird idea of Nick Fury as a badger I couldn't help but write this. Let me know what you think of this or of better ideas for their antics next time! Or maybe you have a better idea for their animals? Oh and if anyone wants to draw any of this up please let me know! It could be seriously funny!<p>

Thanks!  
>~Mysterious Little Person<p> 


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